On Friday 13th February, we welcome our Silver award winner, South East London Integrated Care System to present on Embedding inhaler recycling into the NHS.
In June 2024, South East London (SEL) ICS launched England’s first fully NHS-funded, ICS-wide inhaler recycling project. Running across 20 community pharmacies and all five acute and mental health trusts in SEL, the pilot is fully integrated across primary and secondary care. The public can return used inhalers to any participating site, where they are separated from regular medicines returns and sent for 99.9% component recovery—including aluminium, plastic, and residual HFA gas.
Inhalers are the largest single contributor among medicines to the NHS carbon footprint, accounting for 3% of total NHS emissions. In 2020, the NHS became the first health system globally to commit to Net Zero, later formalised through the Health and Care Act 2022 and the Delivering a Net Zero National Health Service report, which provides statutory guidance to ICBs.
Subscribers can sign up to the webinar and find all the project details on the project page here >
